A Life Truncated For Criticizing The Cuban Government

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, 25 November 2017 — The Mexican illustrator Joan X. Vázquez has created a series of comics produced by the human rights organization Amnesty International entitled Cubans’ Lives  whose pages tell the lives of Cubans and the continuous restrictions to which they are subjected in their day-to-day lives.

The first issue is dedicated to Graciela, a high-level sportswoman whose life took a radical turn when she made some statements in which she lamented the government’s negligible support for her specialty, weightlifting.

We reproduce here the first pages shared by the NGO.

How do Cubans live today? / Graciela was a weightlifting champion. / After a competition she was interviewed {“Some words!”} for the state TV channel. / Graciela criticized her country’s government for lack of support for her career. The interview was NOT broadcast. {My success… thanks to my family…}
{Champion} Graciela was labeled a counterrevolutionary. She was excluded from her sport… and fired from her state job. They gave her 20 days to find another job. If she remain unemployed should be face charges for “dangerousness” and would be criminalized and considered suspect of being able to commit some crime.
Her rebellious status made her search difficult and her opportunities diminished. / The only work opportunity they offered her was to go work in the countryside.
The work was hard. / She was worried. / With the salary she received it was impossible to support her family. / So the time came to make another decision.
Flee Cuba in search of new horizons.